ROCCAT Kone XTD Review

If you've not heard the name ROCCAT before, where have you been? Established in 2007, the German outfit have been significant players in the gaming peripheral market for years and have gone from strength to strength following the explosive increase in popularity of the Western eSports scene.

ROCCAT have a great reputation for style in their gaming peripherals, utilising an aesthetic flair rarely seen in competitors but running throughout their range. Functional design is solid by contrast, with button layout being provably popular and suitable for a wide variety of games. The hardware development process - curated by ROCCAT Labs - tends to be evolutionary rather than revolutionary, focussing on improving internal technology rather than radical external redesigns of mice which have already received excellent feedback from users with regards to shape and button layout. Even so, they can't resist a few tweaks here and there, allowing enthusiasts to customise their mouse or keyboard in subtle ways.

The area in which ROCCAT innovate the most is in software and firmware as they strive for closer integration of their peripherals to the benefit of gamers. In our review of the Isku, David discussed the then-new ROCCAT Talk technology which allowed keyboard modifiers to control certain aspects of mouse performance, resulting in additional control for the users. Easy-Shift[+] by contrast can be used with just a mouse, and effectively doubles the number of functions a mouse button may be bound to. As you might also expect for products which offer almost bewildering choice, the driver software utility is marked by clear layout and customisation depth.